I am working on a tribute to Rudolph Flesch, who wrote “Why Johnny Can’t Read” and, 25 years later, “Why Johnny Still Can’t Read.” Everything he said seems to me common sense. But the educational establishment tried to pretend he didn’t exist. How? Why?

I find only two viable theories to explain this bizarre bit of American history. 1) Our top-level educators were a gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Or, 2) Our top-level educators were ideologues who pushed look-say as a way to dumb down the population. Are there other theories? If you can send any helpful information, I’ll credit you or not, as you prefer. The Flesch tribute will appear on my essay site Improve-Education.org.)

As I research this thing further back in time, I find that the hoax was already in play before 1910. It’s really quite a sad story. A small group of wannabe social engineers decided that too much literacy was a BAD THING. Unfortunately, these people were our top educators! Question: has any of these people ever recanted? Compare, for example, Max Eastman and many other top intellectuals—they embraced Communism but then had the good sense to say they were mistaken. Surely there are educators like that. I would love to chat with such a person.